Interactive Meeting with the Japanese Parliamentary Delegation, on the "Japanese ODA to India", December 6, 2005

The India - Japan Forum of Parliamentarians (IJFP), the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), and the Embassy of Japan jointly organized an interactive meeting with the visiting members of the Japanese Parliamentary Delegation, on Tuesday, December 6, 2005 at The Metropolitan Hotel Nikko.

Among the Indian Parliamentarians present for the session were Mr. Dinesh Trivedi, Mr. P.K. Maheshwari, Mr. Robert Kharshiing, Mr. Lalit Suri, Mr. N.K. Premachandran, Mrs. N.P. Durga, Mr. R.C.S. Reddy, Mr. B.S. Gnanadesikan, and Mr. Raashid Alvi. The Japanese Delegation, headed by Mr. Hidetoshi Yamashita comprised Mr. Keishiro Fukushima, Mr. Kotaro Tamura, Mr. Tsutomu Okubo, Mr. Yukio Tomioka, and Mr. Mikishi Daimon.

The main agenda of the meeting remained the Japanese aid to India, with particular emphasis on the Japanese Official Development Assistance (ODA). The other matters deliberated upon included issues relating to the requirement for grant to India in dealing with killer diseases like cancer and HIV/AIDS, lack of emphasis on English language in Japan, and the importance of India-Japan partnership in the contemporary scenario and the ways to strengthen it.

The leader of the Japanese delegation, Mr. Hidetoshi Yamashita, in his opening address informed the Parliamentarians about the purpose of the delegation's visit to India. He communicated the delegation members' desire to study closely the level of effectiveness and the efficiency with which the Japanese ODA was being put to use in India.

Mr. Yamashita spoke about the Japanese Prime Minister's visit to India in April 2005. Between the Indian Prime Minister and his Japanese counterpart, he said, there was a consensus to further deepen the growing relationship between the two countries. He stressed on the delegation's curiosity to determining effective implementation of the ODA plan in India.

Extending a warm welcome to the Japanese delegation members, Mr. Dinesh Trivedi thanked IJFP, FICCI and the Japanese Embassy for making the event possible.

Dwelling on the issue of the ODA that India received from Japan, Mr. Yamashita wanted to understand the decision-making process in India with special emphasis on the kind of projects the government engaged in.

Expressing India's gratitude to the Japanese Government for extending ODA, Mr. Dinesh Trivedi acknowledged that in the Financial Year 2004-2005, India was one of the highest recipients of 134.5 billion yens as loan. He said the loan was used by India for developing highways, infrastructure like transportation facilities and development of power generation including hydel power, and so on. As far as the decision-making was concerned, he stated that the priority lied with both the Japanese government and the Indian government. The decision was made keeping in mind the significance of the project as well as other factors like poverty alleviation, creating employment opportunities, and most importantly improving the infrastructure facilities in India, he explained. "The proposal", he asserted, "is not sent to the Parliament for any kind of debate or approval."

On the issue of the right to check expenditure utility of the ODA loan, Mr. Yamashita wanted to know about the mechanisms in India through which the donor country could check whether the recipient country had utilized the received grant properly.

Responding to Mr. Yamashita's question, Mr. Trivedi informed that India had got high level Governmental Auditing system. He stressed that India had the Right to Information Act, according to which the public had access to the audit reports released by the government. The government however, was not bound by the Parliament to put up the proposal of the use of the ODA in the Parliament for sanction, he asserted.

Referring to the Parliamentary exchange between Japan and Korea, Mr. Keishiro Fukushima suggested similar exchange between India and Japan through the IJPF. Mr. Fukushima proposed successive visits between India and Japan with each country playing host every alternate year.

Reverberating with Mr. Fukushima, one of the members of the Japanese delegation reiterated that the background of the Japan - Korea relationship owed a lot to the cultural exchanges between the two. "The Korean drama and the Korean movies have become very popular in Japan," he affirmed. He stressed that India was a world level competitive movie making country and proposed collaboration between the two nations in this area.

On the issue of India's participation at the East Asia Summit to be held in Kuala Lumpur in mid-December, Mr. Fukushima enunciated that despite China's reservations, Japan had done the preliminary work of India's inclusion. Calling the MPs as the voice of the people, he said that considering the support Japan offers India, it would be worth starting a new partnership between the two. He urged the MPs to give their feedback regarding their expectations, and ideas to materialize the relationship. Replying to Mr. Fukushima's question, Mr. P K Maheshwari expounded that as far as the East Asia Summit was concerned, Japan and India were on the same wavelength. South East Asia could not be isolated; and India, Malaysia, Singapore, down south to Australia - put together form a separate block, he affirmed. "If we further decide to divide this block between the two," he continued, "that is, China, Malaysia and others on the one side, and Thailand, Japan and India together for joining the South Block, would be more beneficial. So, India's stand is that it is a part of South East Asia and as we all know, there are only three good economies - Japan, China and India, which can sustain themselves."

Reverting to the question of a Parliamentary exchange programme, Mr. Trivedi pointed towards India's great experiences of Suzuki, Toyota, and Honda, and underlined that a lot of Japanese investment was now flowing in India's stock exchange. He fully endorsed the suggestion that between India and Japan, there was a need for a comprehensive exchange programme.

A member of the Japanese delegation raised a question regarding India sustaining its huge population and large area. He was inquisitive to know how the Parliamentarians catered to problems relating the entire nation. Answering the query, Mr. Lalit Suri said, that 55% of the population in India was below the age of 21 years. "So India is going to take over the world, because as the world grows older, India will grow younger," he remarked. Indians are very tolerant; they are God-fearing and believe in peace and not aggression, he maintained. That was one of the reasons, he said why the country was together and had survived so long.

Agreeing with Mr. Suri's views, Mr. Trivedi said that India was a very complex country, and there was a peaceful coexistence among the people. He further added that whenever there had been a problem, the communities cutting across political parties and religion, had always come together.

Referring to the question about India's huge population, its diverse cultures and how India survived with that, Mr. B S Gnanadesikan said, from day one, when India got her independence, the government had changed only by popular consensus. Therefore, he stressed "the most peaceful situation that India is witnessing, is only because of her strict adherence to democratic principles and policies."

Dwelling on the issue of India - Japan partnership, Mrs. N. P. Durga, said, the relations between India and Japan date back to the 6th century and the year 2002 marked the Golden Jubilee of the India -Japan Diplomatic relations. She affirmed "Japan is looking for free trade agreement with India on product perspectives and not merely lowering of the tariff levels." She suggested that there should be some consultation so that India and Japan are able to move towards signing an Indo-Japan Comprehensive Cooperation Agreement. She also invited Japanese companies to outsource their software requirements to India. Currently, Japan's globally sourced IT spending was merely 3%, she said. India had the strength and quality, as the leading IT service provider in the world and this could be an area of effective collaboration for Japanese companies, she stressed.

While thanking Japan for extending financial assistance to India in the medical area through UNICEF, one of the Parliamentarians wanted to know Japan's future plan for extending similar cooperation to India, in the medical area, more particularly with regard to serious diseases like cancer, HIV/AIDS, and so on.

Mr. Yamashita, in his reply, averred that Japan wanted to do the best it could do in this area, not only in one country, but also in Asia and the entire world. He expressed the delegation's keenness to know about other specific areas that needed urgent attention such as the economic development of a country, or the individual problems faced by a country like poverty alleviation, health, education, and so on. This, he said, could happen through exchange of opinion between the Members of Parliament of the concerned countries.

Mr. N K Premachandran wanted to know how Japan was coping at the global level despite the fact that English as an international language was not widely used in Japan.

Mr. Yamashita, clarifying Mr. Premachandran's query said, with regard to English, Japan's younger generation was considerably good and understood the language, although the level of understanding was not uniform. At one point of time, the Japanese were shortsighted in realizing that English would one day become an international language, he explained. He also informed the Parliamentarians that the teaching system in Japan itself did not focus on hearing and speaking; it was more focused on the writing mechanism.

In his concluding remarks, Mr. Trivedi said if India and Japan continued to cooperate and move forward, then language as a hurdle could be overcome. He thanked the delegation members for being present for the session, and hoped that the momentum of growth between the two nations was maintained.